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Student’s Enthusiasm for Soil Science Earns Her Accolades

Tuesday, 21 June 2016
“I met Monica when she came to the Danforth Center in eighth grade as part of a mentoring program we had with the Ladue School District,” said Terry Woodford-Thomas, Ph.D., the Derick and Sally Driemeyer Director of Science Education and Outreach at the Danforth Center. “She was very enthusiastic about science, so I told her to call me in a few years when she turned 16 and we would get her into a research position if she wanted to try something more.”

The day of Monica Malone’s 16th birthday, Terry’s phone rang.

“I knew I wanted to get involved with the Danforth Center because there are a lot of plants that have benefits for human health and I’ve always known I wanted to go into medicine,” said Malone.

Today, Monica is an incoming freshman at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. In early May she graduated from Ladue High School with a 4.0 GPA and a handful of shiny science medals commemorating her dedication and hard work to scientific exploration. Since Monica’s 16th birthday, she’s been working at the Danforth Center learning how to use the microscopes in the Integrated Microscopy Core Facility, experiencing how a real lab functions, learning the intricate details of photosynthesis, experimenting with glowing protists, living organisms that produce emissions of light and many other things including her senior year science fair project.

Her project, titled, “A study of microbial communities from till and no-till Missouri soils using genetic fingerprinting” was created from scratch and was not part of ongoing research. Struggling to find a unique topic, Monica was inspired by her family’s small farm and recent National Science Foundation EPSCoR award to the state of Missouri for which Terry began working in soil science education.

“I knew that till versus no-till was a hot topic that farmers living near my family’s farm have debated,” she said. “It was a slow process to come up with the whole idea for the project, but eventually all the pieces and individual parts came together and we had this amazing idea.”

Microbes are involved in many important processes such as the uptake of nutrients into plants, drought resistance and disease resistance. A healthy microbiome is generally characterized by a high diversity and abundance of microbes. For the project, Monica studied the microbes in till vs no-till agricultural land. Tilling soil is essentially turning it over using farming equipment in preparation for planting. No-till agriculture uses specialty equipment to plant in soil that has not been tilled. Many farmers have switched over to no-till agriculture, because tilling soil has many negative effects such as destruction of soil structure, soil erosion and release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“I first went out into the fields and pulled soil cores from two adjacent fields,” Monica said. “I pulled cores so I could look at different depths and have natural samples within the cores. I then characterized the soil for things like nutrient content, pH, active carbon and organic matter. After that, I isolated microbes from the soil and grew them on synthetic media. I sequenced these microbes using the 16S ribosomal RNA gene. I sent the DNA away for sequencing and then I analyzed the results myself.”

Results showed there was higher diversity of microbes in the no-till soil. Monica furthered her research by profiling the microbial communities in the soil cores using a technique called denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) which can detect very minor changes in DNA sequence. By extracting whole soil DNA, amplifying a specific region of the 16S ribosomal RNA genes and running these DNA fragments through the gel, Monica was able to compare the DNA banding patterns and determine that there was a higher diversity of microbes in the no-till soil, and microbial differences between till and no-till soil samples.

“DGGE was definitely the hardest part of the project,” she said. “It took about 14 hours to run a gel and a few more hours to prep everything.”

The hours she put in soon paid off. Monica’s project won first place in the Honors division of the Academy of Science St. Louis Science Fair in February. That prize qualified her for an all-expenses paid trip to compete at Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (INTEL ISEF) in Phoenix, Arizona in May.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Monica humbly said. “There were so many great projects at the Honors Science Fair, so I was blown away that I got first place. I worked so hard on that project, but there’s no way I could have done it without Terry’s support. She helped me trouble shoot when we ran into problems and was great about connecting me to labs all around the U.S. that were working on similar things to help move the project along. She has really been my biggest supporter.”

The excitement for Monica didn’t stop in St. Louis. Once at INTEL ISEF, Monica joined 1,760 top science and engineering students from 77 countries to compete.

“I got to meet students from all over the country at the pin exchange and learn about the different regions by hearing them talk about their projects,” she said. “Every night there was a different show and dinner with an activity. It was similar to a cruise, but geared towards nerdy kids, so it was amazing. Every night once we were back in our room I would go over the details of my project so I would be prepared to explain even the fundamentals of my research.”

Monica’s schedule was very busy while at INTEL ISEF. Up before the sun, Monica was preparing her pitch to speak to the judges. Presentations were in 15 minute intervals and lasted from 7AM to 5PM. “I’m really good at explaining things to people in a way that they can easily understand,” she said. “The judges got very technical in their questions and would even try to trick you. I can get pretty enthusiastic about soil science and I think the judges liked to see how interested I was in my project.

Again, Monica’s perseverance paid off. She placed fourth out of 90 students in the microbiology division at INTEL ISEF.

“What strikes me most about Monica is the fact that she came to us in middle school through a mentoring program and became a familiar face around the Center because she loves science,” said Terry. “She wasn’t just a high school student looking for community service hours; she loved the bench work, she participated in education and outreach and even went to weekly seminars held at the Center.”

During the project, Monica and Terry worked with soil scientists with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the University of Missouri, and even sought advice from a soil microbiologist from the University of British Columbia to develop and nurture the initial project idea. “We attract great students who are very devoted and career-minded just like Monica,” said Terry. “The Center really supports that energy and the dynamics of what we can offer the students in terms of mentors, networking and the ability to do independent research is superb. Monica used that opportunity as a springboard to her scientific career.”

“One of the biggest things I learned while working at the Danforth Center is that in the real world there are deadlines,” Monica said. “I had to learn that when I met obstacles I couldn’t just give up and move on to something else that interested me. Working in a research institution taught me I can’t give up especially when people are counting on you even if what you’ve found is not what you initially thought you’d come up with.”

Monica will spend the summer working at the Danforth Center before she heads to college to study biomedical engineering. Her aspirations are to work with organ regeneration and possibly end up traveling around the world as a member of Engineers Without Borders, an organization that works to build a better world through engineering projects that empower communities to meet their basic human needs and equip leaders to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. Monica is interested in working on creating higher quality prosthetics to help wounded veterans in need.

“The Danforth Center gave me my start in science,” Monica said. “It’s such an inspirational place to work. I’ve been able to work with teachers and students and so many other people that I would have never met if I wasn’t here. It’s opened a ton of doors for me and I’m so thankful.”